Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome New Years Themes for 2013 by Brand Thunder

We all say this ever year, but at Brand Thunder, we really think that 2012 flew by. And if you don’t believe that the world is going to end soon (and if you do, we’ll take your money), you’ll soon be preparing for the New Year. And if your browser has looked the same all year, now would be the best time to give it a little facelift.

Luckily, there are many New Year’s browser themes out there that will make you reflective about 2012 and excited for 2013 all at once. Check out these New Year’s themes for your Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer browser..

A Year to Celebrate

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: browser themes, Chrome Themes, Firefox Themes, Internet Explorer Themes, New Year | No Comments »

Win an iPad 2 – With Your Pictures of Christmas by Brand Thunder

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The Christmas Holiday themes are rolling in for Brand Thunder’s Best Holiday Browser Theme of 2011 Contest. It’s one of the easiest ways to win an iPad 2. Just design your browser theme with the world’s only DIY browser theme creator for Firefox and IE.

Here are examples of early entries. You still have plenty of time before the December 15 deadline. So, enter your holiday browser theme today! Feel free to also sit back and enjoy by downloading one of these or any of the Christmas or Holiday themes in our browser theme Gallery.

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Posted in BT:Engage | Tags: brand thunder, Christmas, Christmas Holiday, Christmas pictures, firefox, holiday, IPad, New Year, pictures of christmas, Web browser | No Comments »

Why Start-ups Should Show Product Flexibility – Obama Inauguration Honored by Kevin Dwinnell

Or, maybe the title of this post should be: Is it an opportunity or a diversion?

If an opportunity for your start-up is:

1. An extension of your current work
2. Improves product or process
3. Boosts your cash flow

Go for it.

For us, the launch of a browser theme focused on Barack Obama’s inauguration (see it here) was a yes to all of those points.

Here’s the back-story.

Our product focus has always been to deliver custom browser themes for leading brands. NASCAR, Huffington Post, you name it. After all, we create a persistent presence with online consumers, which is a great value proposition. What we didn’t focus on was event-driven versions — until recently.

We figured the long-term relationship a fan has with their favorite sports team or music artist, and our ability to reinforce that, was the real business opportunity. It’s good, but it’s not the only opportunity. There’s also a big demand for event-driven browser themes as well.

We started the non-branded work with sports (baseball, football, basketball and so on), but when we launched Christmas, we saw a real nice spike in users. That was quickly followed by an “Oh, shoot!” moment (word choice edited to maintain our PG rating). The Christmas user base would evaporate after the holiday.

So, we scrambled to get a special “Make Merry or Make History” offering in place, which presented a product for New Year’s and one for the inauguration.

The entire effort was beneficial on several fronts. The non-branded and event-based browsers allow us to maintain our build cycles in between client builds (point #1 above). The need to keep these more transient users inspired our BOOM product platform (see related post here) allowing users to seamlessly move between our themes rather than work to get from one to another (point #2). These products have the same business model as our branded versions, so we continue to build a user base that generates revenue (point #3).

By looking beyond our original product focus, we’ve given our business a lift and hopefully more runway – a plus for any startup. And by delivering an Inauguration theme, we’ve given ourselves until the end of January to build our next event-based BOOM.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: Barack Obama, Branded Browser, brower theme, custom browser, Huffington Post, New Year, start-up | No Comments »